On August 29, 2014, I blogged an entry entitled "Thirteen recent ethics cases against Perth Amboy school board members" concerning several school ethics matters filed by former Perth Amboy school superintendent Janine Walker Caffrey and former elementary school principal Alvaro J. Cores against members of the Board of Education.
In my blog, I noted that there were two other ethics matters, bearing Case Nos. ECC-11709-13 and ECC-00806-14 that had been " withdrawn by agreement of all parties in anticipation of settlement or mediation." I promised to submit an additional OPRA request for records pertaining to those two cases.
Today, September 5, 2014, I was informed by business administrator Derek Jess that no records were found for Case No. ECC-00806-14 but that Case No. ECC-11709-13 had "settled." Mr. Jess provided me with the complaint and settlement agreement, which I have placed on-line here.
According to its terms, the Board agreed to have its insurer pay $184,000 to settle claim Caffrey "may have against . . . any and all past or present board members of the Perth Amboy Board of Education from the beginning of time to a time to the date of this Agreement." Of that amount, $121,033.33 went to Caffrey and the other $62,966 went to her lawyer, Alan Schorr, Esq.
In exchange, Caffrey agreed "not to voluntarily testify" in any of the ethics matters noted in my previous blog entry and to "advise the School Ethics Commission in writing that she believes that this Agreement is sufficient to resolve all the ethics claims she had originally instituted including those now prosecuted by the School Ethics Commission."
Caffrey further agreed to withdraw her ethics complaints, move out of Perth Amboy and not make any statements regarding her employment with the school district. For each violation of this non-disclosure agreement, Caffrey agreed to pay the school district $10,000.